Until Proven Guilty – The Starry Sky Necklace

“Objection, your honor!”. You’ve always dreamed to say these words, and now your time
has come! You’re a rookie lawyer, and you have to replace the defense counselor in a
murder trial. The hearing is about to start, you barely had time to read the case files and
you’re thrust in the courtroom... could this be your chance to shine?

Until Proven Guilty is a cooperative narrative and investigative game for 1 to 6 players.
It’s the latest release from dV Games, producers of the Deckscape and Decktective
series and other critically acclaimed games like Bang! and Bonsai. Taking inspiration
from the cultural phenomena of quirky anime-like legal videogames and visual novels,
Until Proven Guilty is based on a simple premise: what if the protagonist of a legal drama
had no time to prepare whatsoever?

You’ll play as Peter Howard, a charismatic and witty assistant in a prestigious law firm.  Armed with your good looks, your sparkling smile and your burning passion for detective stories, you will face the first real challenge of your career, the case of The Starry Sky Necklace. But wait, with a name like this, the case sounds like a theft, so why are we discussing murder? There must be something inside this article that clarifies the matter...

In Until Proven Guilty, the Trial cards guide you through the story. After reading the current Trial card, you have to provide Evidence to counter the Prosecutor accusation (and sometimes to answer your own questions, like the one from earlier). You have several Evidence cards at your disposal, which can be clues, characters and documents. After choosing the Evidence card you think best counters the Trial card, you’ll use the game’s web-app to check the result. The web-app will provide customized results based on the combination used, so it could show praise for your acumen, give hints to assist you, or dispense vicious mocking by the Prosecutor. This kind of tailored feedback by the game itself is one of the main reasons why this game is so fun. While lots of narrative games provide a “yes or no” result, or allow just a single try before revealing the correct solution, Until Proven Guilty not only allows you to retry in case of an incorrect answer, but it does so in a responsive manner: it provides extra dialogue and context, as well as
funny sharp comebacks which make you really feel the tense rivalry between Peter and
his opponents.

During the hearing, your main goal will be to defend your client by shedding light on the facts, but you’ll also have to persuade the jury in the process. In fact, after each reply, in the event of a correct answer, the web-app could instruct you to flip some jurors over to the Innocent! side, whilst jurors could be flipped to the Guilty! side in case of an error. Of course, winning a trial is not just about providing facts, but also about making sure the jury is able to follow the trail of evidence you’re setting before them, making as few mistakes as possible.

As the game progresses and the story gets more and more intricate, you’ll unlock additional Evidence cards (and sometimes remove others). The Prosecutor will try to get on your nerves, so you’ll have to be clever and collected to provide the right piece of evidence at the right time. After the last Trial card, hopefully justice will be done, and you’ll be able to check how you fared, based on the numbers of jurors on the Innocent! side.

Until Proven Guilty packs together the excitement of a legal drama novel or TV show, a compelling storyline and relatable original characters. Playing the game is a rather immersive experience and it constantly motivates the players to find the correct answers. You’ll find yourself committed to the truth, driven by a strong desire to unravel the mystery and also (or mainly) by the wish to erase that smug little smile from the face of your opponent, the Prosecutor. 

The Starry Sky Necklace is actually the first case of the Until Proven Guilty series. The future cases, on which the authors are already working, will be independent and stand-alone, like this one, but will feature the same protagonist, Peter Howard, as well as some new characters and other returning ones. As the developers put it: “Playing all different stories one by one will give the players a rewarding sense of continuity, as they’ll witness firsthand the growth of the young brilliant lawyer, winning case after case. On the other hand, Prosecutors will get more and more fierce, with surprise witnesses and elaborate schemes to mess with Peter and keep him on the ropes.” Still, it won’t be necessary to play the cases in order, as each story is separate and each box will contain everything you need to play.

DV Games has already proven to be one of the leading editors concerning deduction games, with over a million copies of Deckscape and Decktective sold worldwide. Until Proven Guilty, the latest entry in their catalogue, comes after the debut of another narrative deduction game:  Alibi, inspired by dinner murder mysteries.

In the event that the features of Until Proven Guilty and the fame of dV Games still haven’t persuaded you, there is one last thing to do: try the game out! A demo print-and-play case of the game is to be released during GenCon, with a condensed plot and its own version of the web-app, so you can give it a test run without spoilers, prove the innocence of your client and live the beginning of the career of the brilliant, handsome Peter Howard.